


carry that weight

by BasicBathsheba



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Depression, F/M, M/M, Post-Watford, Simon just loves his best friend, baz is plotting, penny bunce appreciation, penny needs a break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 07:30:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14075931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba/pseuds/BasicBathsheba
Summary: Penny has always taken care of Simon. But who takes care of Penny?





	carry that weight

**BAZ**

Everything about Simon Snow is a spectacle.

If I had thought that it would be different after Watford, I was wrong. The dragon attacks and blank spots may be over, but the war against dark creatures is nothing compared to the exhausting reality of living, day in and day out, with Simon Snow.

I’m still new to it. Every few months I’d surface with a dazed look, my limbs numb from exhaustion, and Penny would give me a sharp clap on the back like a war-hardened veteran addressing a green soldier. 

“Tea, Basilton?” she’d ask, and we’d carry on like the good soldiers we are.

I suppose that in the war of Simon’s life, hardly anyone has been serving longer than Penny.

For her, it’s been one thing after another. The Watford years, and then the aftermath; the awful, traumatising remnants of the Mage and the Humdrum. 

Penny was there in the months immediately afterward. I wasn’t. I got to go back to school and live my life and miss my boyfriend, without the daily emotional labour of watching him fall away from himself a bit at a time. 

“He’s Simon, he’ll be fine,” she would say every time I approached her. She would smile. She’d call me overprotective. “He just needs time,” she would say with the clarity and finality of someone who had spent a lifetime with Simon. 

And she was right. For a bit.

But then he decided to remove the tail and wings.

I was against it, adamantly, from the start. I hated the idea of him subjecting himself to surgery, of him removing something that was a part of him, a part of what made him so  _Simon_. I thought he would regret it, once that last tie to his magic was gone. 

“He wants this, Baz,” she told me in hushed tones in the kitchen of that first flat, the four-floor walk up with no counter space. “We’ve just got to support him.”   
She was cooking something while we spoke, and she kept turning away from me to frown at the empty spice jars that Simon left everywhere.

“How can I support his decision to maim himself?” I had hissed back. 

“Because it’s what he wants. I think they’re holding him back. Before, he was never a normal magician, but he was too explosive to just be Normal. Now, he can’t be a magician, but he’s too different to be Normal.” She had abandoned her food and put her hands on her hips. Her hair was pink then (it was one of the better looks) and she’d traded those awful librarian glasses for something a bit more stylish, after I had spent months bothering her about it. “I think he needs to close this chapter of his life, so that he can start living the next one.”

And she was right about that too.

I was there for that aftermath, at least. She wasn’t the only one who stayed up the night before the surgery, and she wasn’t alone in frantically pacing the waiting room. (I paced. She sat, actually. And then when her father arrived with at least three other Bunces in tow, I sat while she paced.) And she wasn’t alone in the days after, when he would stumble around the apartment because he hadn’t figured out how to rebalance himself yet. 

She was alone when the stitches tore, though. I had to leave. I couldn’t handle the blood that was pouring out of him, and my magic wouldn’t work to close the wound because the wound had been made with magic, and so she had to ride with him to the hospital to see Dr. Wellbelove alone, while I drove behind them, my hands shaking as I tried to take deep breaths and stop myself from crying.

We were there when Simon decided that, in lieu all the options and careers in the world, he was going to become an artist. We both sat for the portraits and nodded at his strange landscapes and cleaned paint spatters off the sink and expressed private relief when he finally found a way to express the words that never seemed to come. 

Penny wasn’t there when his magic suddenly came back one night in our second year of school, though. That moment (that perfect, impossible, beautiful and improbable moment) was all mine. So was the rest of that night, with the tears and the laughter and the whispers and kisses that came with it. That belonged to Simon and I, and it’s seared into the channels of my heart.

But the frustration and the dashed expectations and the black moods that followed as Simon had to relearn his magic, those were shared. Penny is the patient one, she’s sainted in that regard, and she was the one practicing the first year spells over and over, drilling the proper words into his mind, encouraging him when he got upset that his magic wouldn’t fill him like it used to, and I got to enjoy the rewards when he succeeded.

She wasn’t there when he came to the natural conclusion, weeks after Penny and I had, that if he had magic, real magic of his own, magic that tasted like wet leaves and washed over me gently like green sap, that he couldn’t be Normal.

“Mages don’t give up their kids, though,” he said quietly, but even he didn’t believe it.

“We’ll find them,” I promised him. And Penny had to deliver on that promise.

She never did though. Neither of us did. Months of pouring through the record and asking around and searching for genealogical spells all came up with nothing. But eventually the desperate hunt calmed and slowed, and even though we still had a note taped to the fridge titled “WHAT WE KNOW” the push to find his parents became less frantic, and life….kept going.

We moved into a large flat, all together this time. Penny and I graduated; Simon had switched programmes. I went on to get my next degree, and Penny threw herself into her research (I was never sure what exactly she was researching, though). Simon dropped out of school. (“I don’t need a degree to make beautiful things,” he said, which is true, and was fine with me. I’ve always expected to be the breadwinner in this relationship anyway.) To my eternal horror, we got a dog. She’s a loud, terrifying cairn terrier called Butter who looks like she’s gone through a war, and Simon loves her with every bit of his heart that I haven’t already laid claim to. Life settled, and Micah came to stay for a few months, and things were calm, and Penny and I began looking over our shoulders, waiting for the next shoe to drop, living in anxious anticipation of when the next spectacle would arrive.

And then I got offered a job.

I was terrified of how Simon would react. We had already talked about it, about how if one of us (me) got a job outside of London, we’d go together. We’d long since stopped talking about “us” like we were conditional or possibly finite; we were a we, and it was going to stay that way. 

But there’s a difference between dragging Simon to Bath and dragging Simon back to Watford. 

I feared how Simon would feel about being back at Watford, being back around magic all the time, being dragged back into that life. He was just growing comfortable in his magic again, and was carving out a life that included power without being the Chosen One. How would he handle being thrust back into the world and politics that had broken him?

“He’ll be thrilled,” Penny said. “Watford has always been his home.”

And unsurprisingly, she was right.

I was delighted when Professor Bunce offered me the first year elocution position, and over the moon when she asked me to also coach the football team (“budget cuts. Double-duty, you understand.”). I’ve always wanted to teach at Watford. It’s been the plan, ever since I was small, but I’ve never said it out loud, just in case. 

I knew that, to a degree, Professor Bunce knows about my condition. She’s seen the cartons of blood in the fridge that Simon brings home for me. (He always has to get them; with his curls, he can get away with the oddest of requests. Not so when you look like the stereotype.) Her full knowledge of the realities of my situation just made her job offer all the more moving. I knew that I was an excellent candidate; likely the best candidate to apply. But I also know that I got the position because of Penny. Because then I would be sorted, which meant Simon would be sorted, which meant that Penny could take a break. Hand over her shift. 

It’s a kind thought. But I wish Professor Bunce knew her daughter better.

 

**SIMON**

She’s not unhappy, but she’s not happy.

I think it has to do with Micah, but Baz disagrees. 

“I don’t think its that simple,” he argues when I bring it up. “Boyfriends aren’t a magic fix for all of life’s shitty problems.”

“Maybe not,” I say. “But they certainly make the shitty problems more manageable.”

We’re lying in bed, whispering through the darkness, pretending that we don’t see the light spilling out from under Penny’s door. I don’t think she sleeps much any more.

I keep waiting for the day that she tells me she’s leaving. I dread it, but I look forward to it. I look forward to her quitting her dead end coffee shop job. I look forward to her being in motion again. I look forward to seeing her bounce from idea to idea and I look forward to seeing her smile. Baz might not think Micah is the solution, but I’m sure his distance is part of the problem. I can’t imagine how they manage to be so far away from each other. 

It took me longer than I’m proud of to figure out something was wrong. Penny’s not emotional. She’s dry and quick and antisocial at the best of times. It’s hard to tell the difference between isolation and a natural dislike of socialising. But it started to seem like the Penny I know — the Penny who’s always charging into every situation — was staying put. 

I thought she just needed something to do. All through Watford, we were always chasing down some mystery or preparing for some battle or piecing together clues. Penny loves to research. She loves to riddle things out and gnaw them over and take them apart and understand the insides. But things have been quiet lately. There hasn’t been anything to chase.

I try giving her things to do. Baz and I bring up old prophecies that haven’t shown up. I try to restart the hunt for my parents. I ask her to research how I became the way I was. But none of them stick.

She stops reading. She stays in her room doing Crowley knows what until the early morning. One day she doesn’t even get out of bed. She stops eating dinner with Baz and I, stops texting me wild theories, and one day I get a call from Micah asking if she’s alright, since they hadn’t spoken in a week. 

I borrow Baz’s car and drag her out of the flat one day for a drive. The weather is blissfully warm and we roll the windows down and just drive. I don’t love driving the way Baz does, but I understand why he does this when he’s particularly restless. With just me and Penny and good music and nowhere specific to go, it feels like we can just keep moving, forever, constantly going forward and away from the strange stagnation that has overcome my best friend. 

We pull into a carpark next to a public beach and she laughs with delight when I drag her down to the rocky surf, and screams in surprise when we both slip and fall in the water. She beams with pride when I magic us clean again, and I pull her along and point out rocks and shells and fossils and ask her to tell me their names.

This is the day that changes everything, I’m sure of it. As we eat our Cornettos and smile in the flickering light of the setting sun and as the headlights from the other cars throw passing shadows on the long drive home, I can tell that something has shifted in my best friend. She sings with the radio. She lectures me on my driving. We make fun of Baz, and we talk about Micah, and she explains that he wants to teach and she wants to research, and they’re travelling in different directions. 

“Those two things aren’t incompatible,” I say quietly. She just shrugs. 

“They are if they’re done on opposite sides of the ocean.”

“There doesn’t have to be an ocean between you,” I say. Carefully. I don’t want her to think I’m pushing her away. I never want her to feel pushed away. 

“I suppose. But I’m not leaving England. So that makes things a bit sticky.”

It’s a break through, though. It’s a step forward.

Which is what makes it all the more heartbreaking when she’s still taking dinner in her room and staying up late and spending whole days in bed by the next weekend. 

It’s hard to put a finger on what exactly is wrong, because she’s still functioning.

She’s still going through her life, she’s still going through the motions and going to work and doing what is expected of her.

But she’s not  _Penny_. Not the best Penny. Not my Penny.

Baz is expecting it even before I say it. His books are already packed in boxes, his suits have been pressed and hung in neat zippered bags, and yet I’ve packed nothing. We’re on the couch; he’s reading, and I’m on my phone, but I’m not focusing, not really, because there’s too much on my mind and he’s leaning against me, and it’s easier to lose myself in my thoughts and the feel of his long hair beneath my fingers.

“I think I need to stay here with Pen. At least for a term or so,” I say quietly. He sighs, but puts down the book and leans further into my chest.

“I agree,” he says. I feel myself swelling from within. I love his understanding. I love his love. 

“And I think we should do something,” I say. He nods. 

“I agree.”

And so when Baz goes back to Watford, Penny and I stay behind, again. We plan to visit on weekends, and we talk on the phone every night, and I miss him with every fibre of my being, but I focus on Penny. I start thinking of plans. I get the number of a colleague from my therapist in Chicago. (I don’t speak to her much anymore, but it’s still nice to have her on standby, just in case.) I try to broach the subject, and fail. But I drag her out for days in the city. I ask her when Micah is coming to visit (because even if Baz doesn’t think he’s the solution, I think he’d help). It feels good to be working on something important again, like flexing a muscle you haven’t used in a few months.

I just wish I could find a way to make her better.

 

**BAZ**

Simon doesn’t even make it a month of pre-planned weekend visits until he cracks. At least, that’s what I assume when I hear the soft, hesitant knocking on the door of my room in Mummers House. With my living arrangements up in the air, Professor Bunce has let me stay here, since it did used to be faculty accommodations, and they’ve had trouble keeping students in it. (Possibly because of the curse I put on the room when I left.)

I’m already up and smiling as I head to the door, preparing for his stupid sheepish grin, and I’m going to kiss it off of his face and mock him for missing me as I drag him to bed.

But it’s not him.

Instead, it’s Penny.

And the dog.

“Hi Baz,” she says with a large smile. “I brought you this.”

She hands Butter over and the dog licks at my face immediately, and I attempt not to cringe.

“Why? Is Simon—“

“He’s fine,” she says, waving me off. “I came to visit Mum and he asked me to bring Butter. Said he thought you might want her.”

“He was wrong,” I say as Penny pushes her way past me and into the room.

“Wow,” she says, looking around. “It’s so…different.”

It is, but not in the ways that matter. There’s one bed now instead of two, and a large photo on the wall of she, Simon and I from last Christmas. There’s another photo of my mother on the desk near my bed, facing a self portrait Simon drew me for my birthday.

“I can’t believe this is still here,” she says, pointing at the chalkboard in the corner. It’s not the same one from eighth year, but it doesn’t matter. “What are you plotting?”

“A new spell,” I say. I move toward it eagerly. I love discussing magic with Penny; she always appreciates my spell research, far more than Simon. She’s been a crucial part of every spell I’ve created. (All three of them.) (Yes, it is impressive.) And if she’s interested and engaged, I want to encourage that. The spell is early stages yet, not ready for discussion, and I wasn’t necessarily planning on sharing my project with her, but needs must be met. She squints at the board for a moment and realisation hits her. She’s too smart. Maybe even smarter than me.

“Look at you, taking after your mum in every way. What disease are you trying to cure?”

“Not cure,” I say quickly, though I’m pleased that she mentioned my mother. She’s why I’m doing this. Well, she and Penny. “I wanted to combat a major health crisis, so I’m working on a spell for depression.”

Penny’s eyes light up. She looks like she’s going to vibrate. I’m pathetically excited to see her like this.

“It’s not a cure,” I repeat again. “More like a…magickal antidepressant. It’s just to help manage.”

“What are you calling it?”

“I was thinking  **carry that weight**.” Penny nods and studies the board, suddenly serious.

“Basil, are you…” she says, her voice soft. I laugh, too loudly, to cover the awkwardness.

“Me? No, the spell’s not for me. Not any more at least. I’ll admit that part of the motivation is to help sixteen year old boys with crippling loneliness find a way to get out of bed in the morning, though.”

I’m only partially lying. I’m making it for her, or at least I’m trying to. But I do wish I’d tried this years ago.

Penny looks at me and her face is soft as she puts a light hand on my shoulder. Then her face hardens. I know that look. It always comes with a headache, but I’m glad to see it.

“Try it on me,” she says. Her voice is stubborn, her expression set, and she shakes her head, already anticipating whatever I might say. “No, no pity. Just test it on me.”

“Penny, it’s nowhere near being close to testing. And that’s not how these things work, you know that.”

“What’s the harm?”

Even in depression, Penny is upfront and stubborn.

“There’s plenty of harm and you know that.”

She’s glowering at me.

“Penny…” I start, then stop. “Penny, does Simon know? Have you talked to him?”

Of course Simon knows. We all know. But Simon has been dancing around how to bring it up to her, how to hand her the number for the therapist he found. He doesn’t want to be the one to force it on her before she’s come to terms with it herself. 

She huffs.

“Of course he knows. And you know too. Everyone knows, it’s not a secret.”

My face must be too soft because she huffs again. “It’s depression. It happens. I’m not dying, Pitch.”

She only calls me by my last name when she’s signaling the end of a conversation. She learned that from me.

“Just let me know when you’re close to testing, yeah?”

And she’s gone.

I forgot to ask her how she got in.

Simon shows up a day later with a carton of blood and a packet of dog treats. (“I couldn’t handle having  _both_  of you gone, as it turns out.”) I’m relieved; Butter and I have formed an uneasy truce, and I’m eager to have it over.

I show him my notes for the spell and he nods, distractedly. He’s not too keen on my idea. But thus far his plan has involved not talking to Penny about her health and instead dragging her out for fish and chips regularly. I’m willing to put more faith in my plan.

But it seems like he’s done some thinking in our time apart (words I never thought I’d say) because he sits down on the bed across from me with a serious look on his face. Crowley, I’ve missed him. I want to wrap my arms around him and kiss the constellation of freckles on his shoulders, but I restrain myself because this is serious. I pull out my lesson plan to put between us to keep me focused.

“You told me that Professor Bunce is looking to add on that magical languages elective, right?” he says. I nod. I can’t believe he actually listened when I talked to him about my staff meetings.

“Why doesn’t she hire Micah?” he asks. 

“Micah?”

“Yeah!” he says eagerly. “He has a teaching degree.”

“Well, yes,” I say slowly. “But that’s from America.”

Simon shrugs.

“He speaks like five languages.”

“So?” It’s not like that’s rare.

“I mean, I know you do too, but Micah is different,” Simon says, smiling at me.

“People still speak his languages.”

I try to not look annoyed.

“People still speak French, Simon.”

“Do they, though? Do they really?”

I huff.

“This is a fine plan and all, but what are we supposed to do about it?” 

Simon smiles at me coyly and pushes my lesson plan to the ground. 

“You’re close with Professor Bunce. She likes you loads more than she likes me,” he says, advancing. 

“Of course she does, everyone does,” I snap back, trying desperately to keep the smile from my face as he gets closer.

“I thought you might…suggest it to her,” he whispers.

“I’m sure she’s already thought of him. If she hasn’t offered him the job, it’s for a reason,” I try to argue, but he’s so close I can feel the huff of air from his laugh against my cheek.

I lose that argument. I lose all our arguments.

 

**PENELOPE**

They’re worrying about me too much.

I see it in their eyes and the way they hover. It’s why they decided to not move out of our flat, and why Baz is sleeping in a dorm room, so that they don’t have to decide anything too permanent, something that would leave me behind.

But I’m fine, honestly.

I’m just…taking a break.

Simon keeps expecting me to break down, I think. He hovers like I’m about to fall apart and start sobbing, or like I might fly off the handle at any moment. He tries to pack my days with things to do, and he involves me in his art commissions way, way too much, constantly asking my opinion for the tiniest of details.

I’m not going to break down crying about how hard things are, because that’s not me. And honestly, things aren’t hard. Things are good. Simon is good. Micah is good. No one is dying. 

And that’s sort of the problem. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to worry about. So I’m using this time to take a little break from being me. From being responsible and being brave and being tenacious, and I’m just allowing myself to exist. And some days, existing means staying in bed. 

I’m comfortable with that. 

But that’s a bit hard to explain.

I come the closest, one night on the kitchen floor.

It’s just before Christmas, and we’ve lost power due to a freak ice storm, and Simon and I are huddled against the range. I’m dreaming of the Aga oven that runs year round at Agatha’s parent’s house. What I would give to have one of those ecological nightmares right now.

We’re curled together, each clutching a cup of tea, desperate to eek some warmth out of the stove and each other. I know it’s bad because Simon has put on an extra jumper, and his natural heat isn’t enough to warm my toes. 

“Are you excited for Micah to come for the holidays?” he asks me. My teeth are chattering, and I can actually hear them. I give him what I hope is a shrug; I’ve lost all feeling in my body.

I know that he’s excited for the holiday, because it means Baz will be home for two weeks, and I don’t expect to see either of them at all during that time.

Which is fine. I’ll have Micah. 

I’m excited to see him, yes. But…it’s strange. It’s not real. After all this time, it’s still not real. I don’t need him to be here all the time and I don’t need to cling to him to make my life work, but there’s always a bit of an adjustment period when we see each other, when the walls come down, when we learn to be real again, and then we….leave. 

“Baz told mum she should hire him at Watford,” I say instead. Simon nods. 

“He told me. Apparently she didn’t take it well, and suggested he cut his hair.”

“Is he going to?” I ask. Basil doesn’t seem like the kind of bloke who would look good with short hair. Simon shakes his head.

“I told him he’s not allowed to.”

“Good,” I respond with a small smile. “My sister says he’s the cool professor. Everyone loves his buns.”

Simon chokes on his tea slightly, and I grin widely. 

“Honestly Simon, I meant his  _hair_.”

We settle into silence again and Simon moves closer to me. I know he’s trying to give me some of his precious excess heat. 

“Would you want Micah to teach there? To move over here?” he asks carefully. 

“Of course I would. But I don’t really have the energy to focus or hope for that right now.”

I almost wince. I’ve said too much. Simon has sensed emotion, and like a shark that feeds on sensitivity, he’s circling and about to strike.

“Pen,” he says, tucking his leg up between us. “You know I love you, right?”  
I roll my eyes. 

“Seriously, I love you,” he says again. “Don’t tell Baz, but you’re first. He might be my future but… Pen, you’re my present. You’re my past. You’re everything that’s been good in my life. You’re my home. I’d tear open the threads of the universe for you, you know that right?”

I can hear the hitch in his voice when he speaks, and I turn away. I can handle most things; war, depression, immense childhood trauma. But I can’t handle the sight of Simon crying. 

“I want you to be happy. I want you to be your stupidly brave, kind of rude, brilliant fucking self. I want you to go everywhere and do everything, and I don’t want you to be held back because of me, you hear me?” He puts a soft hand on my cheek and turns my head to face him, but I look down. “Hey, seriously, you hear me? I’m good. I’m set. I’ve got everything I could possibly want except for a happy best friend.”

Merlin and Morgana, now I’m crying too. For a boy who has never been able to put his thoughts into words, he’s suddenly just cast a sonnet.

“I’m not unhappy,” I croak out. “I’m just…tired. I’m so tired, Si. I’ve spent so long just looking to the next thing, and now I don’t know what the next thing is, and I don’t care. I honestly just don’t care what life wants to do or throw at me, because I just don’t think I’ve got it in me to do much more than just ride it out,” I say. “I’m not broken. Penny’s not gone. SHe’s just…taking a break.”

Simon stares at me for a long moment and I can see the gears turning inside of his head, and then he nods, drapes his arm over me and pulls me closer to him. 

“I think you deserve a break,” he says, and we push ourselves closer to the dying heat of the stove.

Holiday comes and Baz comes home and I don’t see him and Simon for an entire weekend, but its alright, because Micah appears. My Micah. My unshakeable, unflappable Micah, with his symmetrical face and easy laughter.

He’s always been a fixed point to my nonstop motion, and I worry what use an anchor could be to an object already at rest. But he pulls me along, slowly. He makes me dance with him in the kitchen, and he takes over the burden of talking during family dinners. He walks me through his latest research and he pokes holes in mine, and he sits up late with me and tells me that yes, he’s going to apply for the Watford job, and yes, he wants to move here.

I cry again when he leaves, and I go home to my too empty flat, preparing to ensconce myself in my room again, only to find that Simon and Baz are there, in my room, waiting for me. Simon sits on top of me and Baz pats my head and their combined weight is too much that I laugh and then I cry, and I can’t stop crying, and they don’t leave. 

Simon sleeps in my room that night, and Baz makes us curry. It’s awful.

Just before the break is over and he’s due back at Watford, Baz drops a large folder on my desk. 

“I’m giving up on my spell,” he tells me with a note of disgust. “I’m a disgrace to my name and heritage, but I just can’t make it work. Please, feel free to see what you can do.”

I let the folder sit on my desk for five weeks until I open it.

His calculations are wrong. He’s misunderstood the intent of the song, and so the intent of the spell is wrong too. Healing spells are tricky, and have to be extremely precise. I’m extremely disappointed in how sloppy his trials have been.

I can’t help myself. I tuck in. I start to edit. 

 

**SIMON**

“You should go stay with Baz this week,” Penny mentions over breakfast. I glance up, surprised. She’s dressed already, leaning against the counter with coffee in her hand. Her hair is back to her normal shade (“I didn’t even know what colour my hair was anymore”) and it looks good on her. Really good.

“Why would I do that?” I ask. Butter is tap-dancing in front of me, begging for a scrap from my waffle. I give it to her. The idea of staying with Baz is tempting; I haven’t seen him in two weeks, due to work and my commissions and various scheduling problems. I’m going this weekend, to watch his football match. But the idea of just packing up and going, surprising him when he finishes his classes for the day…

But I pull myself out of it. I focus back on Penny.

“Because I’ve decided I’m not going to resign this lease in May. So I think you two need to have a chat about whether you want to let this flat alone, or go house hunting in Watford.”

I almost choke on my waffle.

“Where are you going?” I ask her. I stand up (I scare Butter, but I don’t care. Everything scares her. Baz is right, she’s a terror) and I go to where Penny is standing. She just shrugs. 

“Watford, if Micah gets the job. If he doesn’t, I’ll go wherever he is.”

“Oh, Pen,” I say, and go to hug her. I don’t let the sadness creep in at the thought of her crossing the ocean and leaving me. This isn’t about me; this is about her. And so I tamp down the part of me that would miss her like I’d been split in two, and only let my excitement come through. She holds up a hand to keep me from hugging her though.

“I’m working on something, something kind of big, and I can work on that from wherever. I want to be with Micah, and I want you to be with Baz,” she says, then shakes her head. She already knows what I’m about to say. I swear, sometimes we can have an entire conversation where I don’t speak at all. “I know that you’ve stayed here for me, because you’re worried. And I’m not saying things are suddenly better and perfect, but…” she trails off. “Turns out, taking a break from being Penny is pretty boring. And I can’t stand watching you mope around here and pretend you don’t miss your boyfriend.”

I push past her still outstretched hand and hug her anyway, squeezing her so tightly that I lift her short little body from the floor. 

“Simon, don’t make a scene. Just go see Baz,” she says, uncomfortably. But I feel her hug me back.

I do what I’m told; I always do. I see Baz, and we agree immediately to not relet the London flat, so that weekend we go to look at houses, and we’re both so swept up in the excitement and relief of the moment that we end up seriously considering buying an actual house in the village outside Watford. And then I go back to London and we agree that it’s mad, absolutely mental, we absolutely can’t afford it, and then we go back and sign the papers for it the next weekend.  

Penny and I box up the flat over the course of the next month, and it feels like we’ve just moved in suddenly, like the time we spent here was gossamer and mist, like we just stepped out the door of that small four floor walk up we lived in when we were 18.

We’re back on the floor of the kitchen, still drinking tea, surrounded by boxes, and Penny smiles.

“Hey Si,” she says quietly. I’m exhausted. I’ve been moving furniture and just moving since way too early that morning, and the warm light filtering in through the window is making me sleepy, so I just give her a small grunt. 

“I love you,” she says. “You’re my number one.” 

I extend my leg and hook my foot up under hers. I know that she’ll appreciate this small gesture more than any emotional declaration. 

That’s where we’re sitting when she gets the call from Micah. He’s speaking so fast and breathing so heavily that I can hear him through the phone, and I can’t help smiling, because his excitement can only mean one thing. 

So when Butter and I bring the last of our belongings to join Baz at our new home in Watford, Penny comes along. 

She ends up taking over the entire garden level, filling it with a whiteboard and cork boards and stacks upon stacks of books and papers. She and Baz spend hours together down there collaborating on their healing spell. Sometimes I hear them bickering at each other late at night until I come downstairs and drag my boyfriend back up with me. I’ve a home, a proper home, with the two people I love most in this world, and I’m determined to enjoy every moment of it. But that requires sleep.

When Micah comes over for the school year and they take up their own flat, I’m so eager to have our lower level back that I actually box up and move all the books out without complaining even once about it.

Micah is a hit at Watford. He jokes about growing his hair long so he and Baz can have cool professor buns together. He tries, and fails, to start a baseball team. Penny’s spell and research grow so large that she brings on a research assistant, and she grows so engrossed in it that she inadvertently creates a spell to stop time while looking for ways to increase productivity. 

She uses the spell to propose to Micah, and it’s a complete disaster, and we have to pull four Watford students out of a parallel dimension, but in the end he says yes. 

And so we settle into our hectic, busy, sticky lives. 

Life is still a bit of a spectacle, at times. But I’m there for all of it, thank Merlin.

 

 


End file.
